<p>How important are the personal statements? S has written a few drafts already but none really stand out. They are just OK.I don't know if he should be spending more time to really get an outstanding essay written. He is struggling with what he should really write about. We looked at some samples but none really gave him any great topic ideas. He's thought about his past experiences, his interests and hobbies that he is passionate about, and other ideas. Nothing stuck as being a really good topic. So I guess I have two questions - are the personal statements really as important as what I read, and if so, how did your kids come up with the ideas?</p>
<p>The essay is more about how you write than what you write about. A very simple concept that is developed into an essay is all it takes. The old story about writing the essay about how he hates broccoli makes sense. It’s the writing not the basic concept. The personal statements, I believe, are very important in most cases. This is where you can show that you can picture yourself at _______ University. Something he saw when he visited that intrigued him or something he read about on the website or heard about in a meeting with the admissions rep is a good starting point for the personal statement. Look online and find a course that is required by freshman and write about how he is looking forward to taking this course. </p>
<p>The personal statement is very important, especially at schools that utilize the holistic approach. As stated earlier, its not so much as what he writes about, but how much of HIM comes through. For those schools where scores and grades are most important for admission, it may not be that important.</p>
<p>An admission counselor shared with us that probably 10% of the personal statements make a real difference in getting a kid into the college, perhaps another 10% are so bad that they get them rejected. The rest only confirm whatever else was on the application and a don’t make a big difference one way or the other. Of course your kid should do the best he can, but most teenagers haven’t had life experiences that make it easy to come up with a topic and most have never been asked to write this sort of personal essay either. </p>
<p>Some ideas that might help:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>read Annie LaMott’s Bird by Bird - especially the chapter on sloppy first drafts. (She used a ruder word.)</p></li>
<li><p>I’ve always liked Digmedia’s advice - here’s a link to one of his posts: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/979752-easy-exercise-get-started-terrific-essay.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-essays/979752-easy-exercise-get-started-terrific-essay.html</a> He also wrote a short book called Jump Start your college Essay by Robert Kronk. </p></li>
<li><p>think about how you want the admissions office to think of you as. The quirky kid with the somewhat unusual hobby. (My son wrote about what he learned from origami - with self deprecating humor - and how he’d both grown up and not since his first exposure to origami paper.) Your first intellectual ah-ha experience. (Same son also wrote about feeling like a historian when he was indexing neighborhood association papers and realized how incomplete first sources often are. Or a kid I know who wrote about thinking about physics on roller coasters.) Your identity. (My oldest son’s essay was about being a computer nerd - to the extent that he’d rather write a program than an essay - and he started the essay with the results of the program.) </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Above all, you want to come off as likable and interesting. Someone who would be fun to have in a class and in the dorm. But you really don’t have to come across as unique or perfect. It’s not about boasting - it’s about seeming more like a real person to the admissions committee.</p>
<p>One admissions officer said if you dropped your essay on the cafeteria floor your friends should recognize it as you, even if your name wasn’t on it.</p>
<p>Unless your kids is applying to a hyper competitive type of school, any well thought out and well written essay should do the job. Just view the essay as a chance for your S to tell admissions officers something about himself. Don’t overthink it.</p>